"Joking, I know. But like I said, you picked the wrong time. I started to wonder whether you're more interested in cracking jokes than you are in learning something about this company."
The accusation stung. "Of course I'm not," Randy said a little stiffly. "I'm sorry I gave you that impression." The temptation to tell him how hard she'd worked was strong, but she knew that words wouldn't impress him at all. He was looking for the right analysis of the problem and she had to give it to him. The land, she repeated to herself. Hadn't Dunne Industries recently sold off a health-food store chain?
"We—Dunne Industries that is—we have quite a bit of cash to invest, don't we?" she asked.
"I see you're finally thinking in the right direction," Luke drawled.
"So we could take the cash and develop the area ourselves. We could put in a shopping mall connected to C & D on one side, with a tiered parking structure to hold the cars."
"We could do that," Luke agreed, smiling. "In fact, it's a very good idea. So good that your father first thought of it five years ago."
"Five years ago?" Randy repeated. "You mean to tell me that all of this was decided five years ago and you made me read through all those reports and traipse around White Hills—"
"Did you learn anything?" Luke interrupted.
"Well, yes. Of course I did," Randy admitted. "But still…"
"But nothing. I could have sat you down and explained our plans and you wouldn't have picked up one-tenth as much as you did this way. The store manager in White Hills is active in the community. Five years ago he started to pick up rumors about the new county building. He told Bill and your grandfather and the result was that Dunne Industries quietly began to acquire the land surrounding the store. It's taken us this long to buy everything we wanted. Yes, the profits have gone down in the short term, but when we reviewed the situation last month to make a final decision our calculations indicated that we should be able to make an acceptable profit out of that location over the next several decades, both on the store itself and as the developer of an adjacent shopping area. So tell me, did I waste your time?"
Randy knew exactly what he wanted to hear. "No, Mr. Griffin. You didn't waste my time. You're a wonderful teacher."
"Do I detect a sarcastic note in your voice?"
"From me?" Randy looked astonished. "Of course not."
Luke gave her a skeptical look and started to explain the proposed development, saying that preliminary discussions had already been held with city officials and with a number of prospective tenants. Her next assignment, he promised, would be far less taxing than the first had been. Handing her financial information on the corporation and marketing and site location studies for the Dallas store, he told her to familiarize herself with the project by Thursday morning. That afternoon she'd be attending the quarterly store managers' meeting with him.
Even if Luke Griffin never set another trap for her, Randy was determined to know those reports backward and forward. They accompanied her everywhere, even to bed at night. She even astonished her father by declining his invitation to accompany him to a play. He'd stopped by her office late Wednesday afternoon, saying that Emily was tied up with a client and couldn't use her ticket.
He immediately assumed that his daughter must be suffering from some life-threatening ailment to refuse a chance to attend the theater and announced that he would take her home in a taxi and take care of her.
"I'm perfectly healthy," Randy assured him. "It's just that I need to work tonight. I didn't do as well as I would have liked with the White Hills project and I want to be well-prepared."
"Anxious to impress Luke, hmm?" Bill teased.
"Anxious not to be trapped again," Randy corrected. "Luke can be terrifying when he puts his mind to it."
"In that case, put down the reports. Luke doesn't expect you to eat, breathe and sleep them, honey." Bill took the papers out of her hands and walked around to Randy's side of the desk. "Dinner first, then the play," he said, pulling her up.
Later she thanked him for being so insistent. The play dealt with the familiar subject of family conflict, yet the characters were so sensitively drawn and the dialogue so true-to-life that she found herself deeply involved in what was happening. Most of all she envied the young actress who played the daughter of the family, but when she said as much to her father he merely laughed and told her that next time he took her to a play he'd check to make sure that all the female roles called for actresses over forty.
The next morning Randy reviewed her notes on the Dallas project until she was sure that nothing Luke could ask her would faze her in the slightest. Then she marched down the hall to his office. His door was closed and Rita was on the phone; when she noticed Randy she mouthed, "He's busy."
A few seconds later, just as Rita hung up, a small, portly man came scurrying out of the office, a large black briefcase clutched in his hand. "He was sure in a hurry," Randy observed as he rushed out the door. "Who is he?"
"Katrina's agent. She's signing a contract to do the promotional work for the Dallas store. I guess you can go in now, Randy. Your dad sat in on the meeting, by the way."
Randy gave a knock and opened the door to find Luke and her father sitting together on the couch, laughing at something.
"What's so funny?" she asked.
"It's unrepeatable," her father answered, getting up to leave. "I assume you're here to speak to Luke." He glanced at Luke, adding, "She's memorized all that stuff on the Dallas store. I don't want to be the one to tell her that we've decided against the project." He chortled to himself and walked out the door.
Randy was totally bewildered. "But Katrina's agent… ? Rita said…"
"He was kidding, Miranda. Pat spent a good part of Monday tracking down your grandfather in Italy. He's solidly in favor—your father and I have been the cautious ones. Our capital isn't unlimited and we don't want to overexpend it, especially given the current economy. But you must know our financial situation from the reports I gave you."
"Yes, and last year's annual report showed that—"
"You must need something else to do," Luke interrupted.
"But aren't you going to ask… ?"
"No."
"Not anything?" After all the work I put in? she added silently.
"Not right now. I'm sure you've done your homework, and I've got some material to review for the meeting this afternoon." A number of papers were scattered on his desk and he gathered them together and shoved them into a file folder. "Skim as much of this as you can before lunch. I'll stop by your office at about twelve-thirty and take you out to eat. It will give us some time to talk. We can come back to the meeting together afterward."
Randy took the folder and walked halfway to the door before she stopped and turned around. "Just as a point of information," she drawled, "was that an invitation or an order, Mr. Griffin?"
"It's an invitation if your answer is yes and an order if it's no," Luke shot back.
Randy put a hand on her hip and smiled. "One of these days I'm going to have the last word, you know. I hope you realize that."
"Naturally. I have to let you win a round or two just to keep up your spirits," Luke agreed.
But obviously not this round, Randy thought as she walked back to her office. The folder Luke had given her contained the minutes of previous quarterly meetings and numerous reports explaining how various problems had been handled. There were also examples of materials from successful promotional campaigns and summaries of recent market research. Randy quickly saw that the meetings conducted under Oscar Levitan, Luke's predecessor, had been less than productive and poorly attended. Luke had taken over as vice president in September, and while the October meeting had been primarily a forum for listening to the managers' problems and complaints, the minutes for January and April reflected solid accomplishments in a number of important areas.
Luke poked his head into Randy's office a few minutes early, before she'd had time to finish her reading. "I sti
ll have a couple of things left to do," she said. "I'd better skip lunch."
"All you have to do this afternoon is meet our managers and listen to what they have to say. No one's going to cross-examine you—not this time."
Thus reassured, Randy allowed Luke to take her to a German restaurant down the street, where she ordered half of what she would have loved to eat and declined a glass of wine, explaining that alcohol was fattening and that dieting was a way of life for her.
"I've seen your diaper commercial," Luke teased. "You must be at least twenty pounds lighter now."
"Only ten pounds," Randy corrected with a smile. "The camera really does add weight."
"Your father mentioned that you'd been starving yourself for a movie role. Were you disappointed not to get it?"
Randy decided to take a calculated risk. Linda's advice to the contrary, she and Luke were never going to get any closer to each other if she didn't permit him a glimpse of her personal thoughts and feelings at times.
"Actually," she said, toying with her napkin, "it wasn't a movie role at all. It was a man. But there was no point in telling my father that. It only would have upset him."
"But it happens to everyone sometimes," Luke answered.
After what Randy had told Luke in Maine he surely must have understood, but she explained the situation anyway. "The point is, even though Dad's had his troubles with my sister he's never had to spend a day worrying about me. I was always the sensible one, the good one, the backward one—until I met a guy in Los Angeles who wound up ditching me to marry someone else. I took it harder than I probably should have. It's funny—I saw him at a party when I was back in L.A., but the woman he was with wasn't his wife."
"So you figure you were lucky."
"I suppose."
Randy was no mindreader, but Luke's searching look virtually announced that he was thinking about who'd been up in Maine with him. Perhaps he assumed it would be a waste of his time to ask her, because he merely remarked, "I hear that your sister is dating Roger Bennett these days."
Randy told him he'd heard right, adding that Linda and Roger were in Paris at the moment and that Linda hoped to do some buying for the store. "Lin seems to have straightened out a lot since her last divorce," she said. "She's a little less frenetic and more sensitive to people's feelings. I hope things work out with Roger, because I liked him when I met him and I thought he was the right kind of man for her. He's strong enough not to give in to her and he expects the best from people."
"And what's the right kind of man for you?" Luke promptly asked her.
Even if Randy had known the answer she wouldn't have touched the question with a ten-foot pole. She'd told Luke enough for one day. "Anyone but Sean Raley," she said with a smile.
After that they stuck mostly to business, talking about the Dallas project and what would be covered in the meeting later that afternoon. Randy listened far more than she talked, asking an occasional question and discovering just how little she really knew. Her liberal arts education, with its single course in economics and lack of exposure to statistical methodology and computer science, had evidently left her ill-prepared for a career as a modern corporate executive.
The branch managers' meeting was being held in the company conference room on the top floor of the C & D building. Luke and Randy walked in fifteen minutes early and joined Rita Washington and a group of executives by a sidetable laden with drinks, pastry and fruit. Promptly at two-fifteen Luke invited the thirty-five-plus people present to be seated and started the meeting. Randy was on his left near the end of the table, while Rita had positioned herself halfway down from the end in order to take notes.
Luke began by introducing Randy and welcoming the new assistant manager of the Boston store. Then he asked everyone present to give his or her name and title. The preliminaries attended to, he gave a mock sigh. "Okay, let's take the complaints first. You don't like the fall merchandise we pushed at you. It's all wrong for your customers and the stuff you found on your own is ten times better."
There was a ripple of laughter. In fact, the managers were pleased with the fall lines. Most of the merchandise was selected from suggestions made by buyers operating out of headquarters, but an important percentage came from buyers employed by the individual stores and tended to reflect local taste. For several minutes the managers shared names and addresses of their "finds", most of whom were local manufacturers or even independent artisans.
The first item on the formal agenda was the financial statement for the second quarter of the fiscal year. Balance sheets and sales figures for the fifteen branch stores and the Manhattan store were passed out and studied. With a few exceptions it had been a good spring. One problem area was in White Hills, and another was in Philadelphia. Luke questioned the manager of the latter store in a low-key, unthreatening manner, but Randy caught a hint of steel in his voice as it became apparent that his suggestions had been largely ignored. The assistant manager of the same store sat there trying to conceal her delight. Obviously she assumed that she was in line for a promotion.
The discussion of quarterly earnings led to protests about a new corporate accounting practice that Luke had put into effect. The managers clearly felt that due to the change, store expenses appeared to rise while corporate expenses dropped, whereas Luke argued that his only concern was an accurate accounting of actual expenditures by the central corporation. He promised to have the comptroller's office send out a memo further explaining the matter, saying that if there were still questions about it people could ask them at the next meeting. It was obvious that he had no intention of backing down.
C & D had always stressed the value of training its personnel, so Luke took half an hour or so to ask his managers' opinions on what types of training their employees needed. The group worked out tentative dates and locations for training seminars, and Rita jotted down suggestions about content. The most frequent request seemed to be for Luke's personal presence as a speaker, something that impressed Randy as much as anything she would hear that day.
The next block of time was reserved for sharing successful ideas in areas such as promotion, display, public relations and management. Randy had expected a free-wheeling session full of generalizations, but quickly realized that Luke Griffin would never tolerate such a waste of everyone's time. His managers came fully prepared with copies of advertising material, photos of displays, lists of steps taken to implement their ideas and written summaries of their presentations to pass out. Although the atmosphere was informal enough to permit quiet trips for coffee and cake, there were no undercurrents of conversation and no signs of restlessness.
As the meeting continued more and more senior company executives wandered in to listen. Randy had known many of these men and women since she was a girl and time and again she received a smile or a peck on the cheek before they sat down in one of the extra chairs along the wall. Eventually there were nearly two dozen observers in the room.
The final hour of the meeting was devoted to problem-solving. The managers were specific and concise in describing their difficulties, with Luke acting as a sort of catalyst to help them pinpoint the real causes. Bill Dunne arrived just as this section of the meeting got underway, so Randy gave him her seat and found another by the wall. Just as Luke was wrapping up the meeting with a brief summary of what had been covered and accomplished, Emily Dunne came into the room to remind everyone that they were invited back to the house for a buffet supper. It was typical of her mother, Randy thought, that she would take the time to reextend the invitation in person.
Luke walked back to the apartment with Randy and her parents, the two men slightly ahead of the women, discussing how the meeting had gone.
A few blocks from the store Bill stopped and turned around. "So what did you think, honey?" he asked.
"It was fantastic. I can't believe what they accomplished in just three and a half hours. The meeting was disciplined, nobody wasted time, everyone was prepared…" Randy's voice
trailed off when her eyes met Luke's. He was smiling the smuggest smile she'd ever noticed on his face.
"So I finally managed to impress you," he drawled.
"I've always been impressed, Mr. Griffin," Randy drawled back. "The problem is, nobody could possibly be as impressed with you as you are with yourself."
Her gibe failed to find its target. "That's only because no one knows me as well as I know myself," he laughed. "Would you care for the opportunity to try?"
Randy rolled her eyes. "Suppose I said yes. What would you say?"
"I'd say, 'Name the time and date'."
Determined not to let him have the last word, Randy suggested archly, "How about now?"
He nodded, walked back to her and put an arm around her shoulders. "Excuse us, Bill, Emily," he said. "Miranda and I will be staying at my house tonight."
Randy's sheer blouse provided very little armor against his touch. Aware that her parents were watching with amused interest, Randy started to blush. When Luke pulled her away with him and whistled for a cab, her eyes slid to the sidewalk in defeat.
"Luke, do leave her alone," Emily scolded. "She's no match for you and you know it."
He complied with a knowing wink at Randy, leaving her ready to sink through the concrete. At a minimum he knew that she wasn't as innocent as her parents believed, and at a maximum he might be aware that he himself had sampled her favors on more than one occasion. Mercifully he didn't actually say anything, but merely walked back to Bill and started to talk business again.
"I'm going to have to fire Heywood," he said as they continued toward the apartment. "The Philadelphia store should be doing five percent more business. I've given him as much help as I can, but it's been a waste of our time and money."
"Eight to ten percent more business," Bill corrected, "and I told you that a month after you came on board. I understand why you wanted to wait, but I think you underestimate just how much respect you've earned in this company. Have you decided who to replace him with?"
Luke glanced back over his shoulder at Randy. "What do you think, Miranda? How about the assistant manager, Sheila Kane?"
An Act of Love Page 15